Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarted Sandbox Space Flight Sim)

As things stand the patch is a bit of a mixed bag. There are a lot of good things in it, but there are enough things that don't seem well thought out to take some of the gloss off it. Powerplay itself is like Minor Factions v2.0, and like the Minor Factions it seems overly complicated and sometimes contradictory, and also like the Minor Factions it will probably take a few patches to get it right.

They have tweaked the player bounty system so they are at least listening to some of the complaints. I hope they'll postpone the 10% refit charge too but no word on that.

The length of time bounties are active will scale according to the level of the bounty. So at the bottom end - an assault charge, for example - you would receive a bounty, but the time it remains active will be quite low, say 15 minutes. For more serious crimes the time will increase according to the value of the bounty, so at 1,000 credits it's a day and up to a cap of seven days for bounties of 7,000 credits or higher. The active time will increase if you commit further crimes, so committing numerous assault crimes will increase the bounty value and the time that it is active.

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As for Bounty Hunting itself, this is a decent post on the state of play (the Turrets point I'm pretty sure is a bug):

In Summary, after 2 days (Bounty Hunter perspective)

I like the minor faction thing, but the rubb is that is should have bigger payouts and punishments.

Join a faction, work your way through the ranks (honestly, fuck reputation decay), get some cool things and help change the world by spreading your factions influence. However you should now be kill on sight with any system controlled by other factions.

Desert from your faction? Sure, but then get KOS in systems owned by your former friends, get a bounty on your head and have a really really long cooldown period where the other factions do not trust you enough to let you join them (you jumped ship once, what is stopping you from doing it again?).

Currently its more like; Join faction 1, pay a sum of credits to boost your rep by buying whats needed for missions, get special item from faction, defect, join faction 2.....

Oh and founders world should not be possible to claim for any faction.... its a neutral place owned by the pilots ffs.

Faith_sl said:

I like the minor faction thing, but the rubb is that is should have bigger payouts and punishments.

Join a faction, work your way through the ranks (honestly, fuck reputation decay), get some cool things and help change the world by spreading your factions influence. However you should now be kill on sight with any system controlled by other factions.

Desert from your faction? Sure, but then get KOS in systems owned by your former friends, get a bounty on your head and have a really really long cooldown period where the other factions do not trust you enough to let you join them (you jumped ship once, what is stopping you from doing it again?).

Currently its more like; Join faction 1, pay a sum of credits to boost your rep by buying whats needed for missions, get special item from faction, defect, join faction 2.....

Oh and founders world should not be possible to claim for any faction.... its a neutral place owned by the pilots ffs.

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I'm with you on the jumping from one power to another to get all the goodies. I'm alright with defecting from one power to a second; the first power will hunt you down so there's a consequence, however ineffective that may be as you get to keep the modules you bought if they kill you. What I'm not OK with is jumping to a third power and so on. Sooner or later you shouldn't be able to keep switching about, the new power should just tell you to take a hike as you're clearly in it for the money, rather than supporting the cause.

The Founders World is supposed to be neutral, the latest patch fixed the actual status but the displayed status is still incorrect (so it looks wrong on the map but in practice it's neutral).

Reputation decay is another thing they are tweaking

Reputation decay

- Allied rep with Feds, Empire and Alliance will decay to Friendly over 20 days if you do nothing to support that faction. Minor factions don't decay at all from Allied
- Hostile rep with major and minor factions will increase to unfriendly over 20 days if you do nothing more to annoy them.

There should be some way to get access to these items without pledging loyalty to a power.

Independent mercenaries? Can't really do work without them, anyways. And powers usually prefer having some assets around they can use for more dangerous tasks, as they're expendable

Quineloe_sl said:

There should be some way to get access to these items without pledging loyalty to a power.

Independent mercenaries? Can't really do work without them, anyways. And powers usually prefer having some assets around they can use for more dangerous tasks, as they're expendable

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Hmm, they could make Missions to go steal modules from a Power. Make it a Pirate mission where you interdict a trader and scoop the dropped cannisters, with some time limit after which help arrives for the trader. If you get all the cannisters back in one piece, you get the module as a reward, but you'll end up Hostile with the Power.

I've not checked, but Shinrarta Dezhra might sell the modules anyway.

Taken from the forums, a quick list of some of the benefits you can get from Powerplay factions even if you aren't pledged to them. Control effects are passive bonuses that apply to all systems controlled or influenced by a Power, and all players, not just those who pledge to a faction.

The specific effects vary depending upon whether the system is Controlled or just Influenced, and whether it is Federation, Empire, Alliance or Independent; for example Zachary Hudson will increase security in Federation systems he influences, but security will decrease in an Empire system he influences. Likewise, killjoy Antal bans black markets where he controls things, but conversely black markets pay +20% where he only influences.


The full table is at:

PowerPlay - Exploitation bonuses, Minor factions influence and Galnet

Powerplay is live today, both on steam and through the launcher. Mac and PC. ED universe is getting its first human faces, I think there is a lot to be pleased about, I'm excited about flying back to human space finally.

Handy Powerplay guide, combining the manual released by Frontier with other useful information.

Elite Dangerous: Power Play - Google Slides

So I'm as casual as it gets (maybe 5-10 hours a week, if that). Does Powerplay do anything for me, or do I just say "meh fuck that" and carry on RES killing and CG farming?

Basking in a clipper currently.

It's a good question. If you join a Power, you can run simple missions for them and earn Merits for doing so. At the end of each week, you get a cash reward for the number of Merits you have, and some (but not all) of the Merits carry over to the next week. There are also some power-specific bonuses.

The problems at the moment are mainly in the balance of ways of earning Merits; Undermining by killing enemy ships in enemy territory nets 15 merits per kill (and bounty cash), but killing the same class of ship (in fact, any class of ship: a Cobra gives the same as an Anaconda) in a Contract mission combat zone gives you just one merit.

It's also unknown how many Merits carry over from week to week; the current best estimate is 50%. As long as you earn more than you're losing per week you'll rise up the ranks, but eventually it will level off.

e.g. say you play enough to get 1,000 per week. Your rating will go something like:
Week 1: 1,000
Week 2: 500 + 1,000 = 1500
Week 3: 750 + 1,000 = 1750
Week 4: 875 + 1,000 = 1875

So whether Powerplay is worth it depends on whether you get more cash from Merits than not. My best guess right now is not, unless you earn about 10,000 Merits. I expect there will be balance changes to come though.

Note that some power effects are in force for everyone regardless of whether or not you are aligned with a power. These are both good and bad; for example the Sirius guy controlled systems have cheaper outfitting for everyone.

I think Powerplay is clearly worth looking into. Its begun to organize human space in a way that is organizing human players in groups of various sizes. If you want the game to be dangerous, join a power and start undermining expansion efforts. The Felicia Winters #1 Fed faction is losing all 3 of its expansion attempts this cycle (1 week). I ended up pledging myself to the Sirius Corporation only because they are the only faction that seems to give two shits about exploration. I know there are power subreddits, and most of them have at least some organized players groups and discussion about bigger strategy.

25% off on steam right now for another 30 hours

There's a trial for this on Xbone. I love it but I think it's better suited for the PC just because keybinds will make it easier to do shit. Plus the game drops frames on Xbone but that might be rectified in later builds. It's till pretty fun on Xbone though and I think it's only $30.99 on there so I might pick it up there but I think the extra $10 on Steam(if the re-run the sale) is worth it. So if it ends up on Steam at $45 again I'll grab it from there.

This game will quench my thirst till No Man Sky comes out.

So, I had zero problems learning to dock on my first try. What do people find so hard about it? Just true newbies to space flight sims?

So what powers are worth to pledge for?
Will it be shields > guns? Kinda annoyed that its empire heavy and the independent kinda suck though.

Dyvim_sl said:

So what powers are worth to pledge for?
Will it be shields > guns? Kinda annoyed that its empire heavy and the independent kinda suck though.

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I don't think anyone's seen the modules yet - AFAIK they weren't in the beta test, and you have to stay pledged for 4 weeks before you can buy them. Shields would seem to be the safest choice, as the guns might not fit the ships you like to fly. Frontier aren't much good at balancing things either, so don't expect the factions or the rewards to be equal.

Bear in mind that you have to either grind or spend lots of credits to get Powerplay Merits; if you're grinding for them you won't be earning much credits in the meantime. I wouldn't pledge to a power until you're happy with the ship(s) you're flying. There's a lot to be said for staying independent and just taking advantage of the side-effects of the Powers, like cheaper outfitting in Li Yong-Rui systems.

Frontier have also published their full year trading update:

Revenue: doubled to over ?22 million
Profit: ?1.25 million
Debt: zero
Elite Dangerous copies sold: more than 640,000 (up to the end of May)

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/e.../12402020.html

Araxen_sl said:

So, I had zero problems learning to dock on my first try. What do people find so hard about it? Just true newbies to space flight sims?

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I think main issue people have is that they're not using all thrusters.

Running Dog_sl said:

Revenue: doubled to over ?22 million
Profit: ?1.25 million
Debt: zero
Elite Dangerous copies sold: more than 640,000 (up to the end of May)

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/e.../12402020.html

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No surprise they're pushing xbone like that, then. There's no way the next year will see profits just with the few more PC sales they'll get.

Quineloe_sl said:

I think main issue people have is that they're not using all thrusters.




No surprise they're pushing xbone like that, then. There's no way the next year will see profits just with the few more PC sales they'll get.

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The price is pretty cheap too. It's $30.99 on Xbox. I might pick that one up too eventually.